Newsletter Fall 2007

Such a strange juxtaposition! So much of what I am learning is how to be in the present moment with its sensate richness and yet here I am planning and sending out my fall schedule. Such a dance, such a balancing act and both are necessary in order to be in this world.

Spontaneity and spontaneous moments – dropping down, letting go, emptying out, clearing the slate and waiting for the true impulse to arise from deep in the organism, a place that isn’t from an habitual learned mode, that isn’t coerced by a need to please or appease another – that’s the magic.

In the summer retreat day, as people were expressing how beneficial it is to move and be in this way with others, the question arose, “How does one keep this going, how to access this in our world that doesn’t recognize slowing down, organic responses and how to express ourselves from that place. In fact, our world seems to act in so many ways that are opposed to this – speeded up, disconnected from our bodies and from the somatic world. We are influenced by the field and the context in which we live. In fact, we are in relationship, self to other all the time.

In the book I’ve just read by Victor Chan about his journeys with the Dalai Lama, “The Wisdom of Forgiveness,” he speaks to the Dalai Lama’s interpretation of emptiness and in my understanding, it has to do with being in relationship and interconnected, so that there is no “I”, no centre – it’s empty!. This also resonates with Hubert Goddard’s vision. There is no centre, no “Who I am” – there is only “Where I am” – the relationship with other. The polarities, the orientation to ground and space and how we perceive creates and fills in what’s between, again an emptiness, always moving and changing.

Back to our question of how to maintain and access our deeper, inner organic connection to our outer world, I would suggest the following. As one practices and spends time in this realm, it gets more attractive than the habitual, cultural modes, so we begin to prefer it. In this way of being and expressing one is much more connected to and resonating with the organic levels of movement in the field, in the universe. So not only does our world affect us, we affect it!

In the words of Marianne Williamson, from Nelson Mandala’s inaugural speech, “ It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us…You’re playing small does not serve the world….We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us…and as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Except for a few beings, there is no such thing as being enlightened all the time. You lose it, you find it and with practice your ability to find it gets sharper and quicker. It is cumulative and in the resonating we tune into the micro-tubules of others who are moving/sensing in these ways. The field becomes enhanced and richer. As Jesus said, “When two or more are gathered—-“

With love & blessings, Doris